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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900775">Intervention</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReachForTheStars/pseuds/ReachForTheStars'>ReachForTheStars</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:34:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,334</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900775</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReachForTheStars/pseuds/ReachForTheStars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gregor decides that Regalia's - and his - survival is more important than secrecy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Intervention</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>From <em>The Code of Claw</em>, chapter 2:</p><p>“Next time I see Lizzie—” Gregor thought. And then he realized he would never see her again. Or any of them back home. Because he was never leaving the Underland. He was going to die down here….</p><p>Gregor watched as the note floated from his hand and came to rest gently on the floor. And that’s when Sandwich’s words finally hit him.</p><p>WHEN THE WARRIOR HAS BEEN KILLED</p><p>The room spun around and he clutched a shelf to keep from falling. He felt an immense pressure in his chest, as if he were in danger of breaking into a thousand pieces, and was unable to draw a breath. “No! I don’t want this! I don’t want to die!” he thought. His entire body began shaking as he tried to push the threat from his mind, but it was too powerful. “I can’t do this. I can’t. I’ve got to get home.” Luxa was right. It was too much to ask of him. To give his life, his future, to give everything he had for the Underlanders. “I’m getting out of here. Going to get Boots and my mom and get home and—never—look—back!”</p><p>For an instant, he thought he really might do it. But then what? What? What happened to everyone he loved down here? They would all die as the prophecy foretold. He could never let that happen. Would never let that happen. So then—</p><p>Gregor sank to the floor, panting, as the waves of tremors ran through him. He struggled to get ahold of himself. This had to stop…”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s your plan?” Gregor heard Ripred’s voice in his head. “What’s your plan?”</p><p>Gregor looked away from the stone knight, taking slower, deeper breaths. It was like Ripred said: he had to stop this and <em>think</em>. Maybe there was a way. OK, the <em>constraints </em>on the problem, as his dad would put it, were if he stayed in the Underland, did what the prophecy said he had to do, being the “warrior”, he would die. He’d seen enough of the prophecies fulfilled that there didn’t seem to be a way around that. The next <em>constraint</em> was that if he left, Regalia would be doomed. He could go back to the surface, but not without…he grasped wildly at anything, trying to keep the panic at bay. Could someone else be the warrior? No, he’d been in too many prophecies already…could someone replace the warrior?</p><p>The Regalians needed help, he thought suddenly. That’s the constraint. Does it have to be me? The prophecy says so, but what if I don’t do what the prophecy says? Could someone else help…<em>question your assumptions</em>, his dad’s voice said in his head.</p><p>And then it hit him, so suddenly he actually took a step back and almost fell. There <em>was</em> someone who could help. In fact, there were a lot of someones who could help. But that would mean…</p><p>Gregor sat down slowly against the museum wall. He could do it, he thought. He could save Regalia, and his life, and everyone he cared about…but it would mean…it would change everything.</p><p>He tried to think through the consequences fully but gave up after a few minutes. Too many unknowns, too many variables. But would it work? Could he save everyone? He thought for a few moments about all the bad things his dad had said about the President, and then about what he’d learned in social studies class. He thought about the fate of the rats, and then, what had already been done to the nibblers. He thought about the Prime Directive and colonialism, and the Industrial Revolution. He thought about things he couldn’t hope to understand, and, realizing that, sat there for a long moment, indecisive.</p><p>Then his gaze found the note. And then the words flashed before his eyes again.</p><p>WHEN THE WARRIOR HAS BEEN KILLED</p><p>Gregor let out a long breath, then stood up. He needed to find Ares, to take him to the surface so he could turn two worlds upside down.</p><p>…</p><p>“Drop, Overlander,” he heard Ares say in an urgent tone, and Gregor jumped into the void. Ares caught him instantly and took off at warp speed.</p><p>“Just got out,” said Gregor, putting his box behind him as he fastened on his sword. “You?”</p><p>“The doctors allowed me fifteen minutes to exercise over the river. That has long passed,” said Ares. “They will be after us.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” said Gregor. “No one saw me go through the turtle, but they saw me go into the room…but that, well…” He still wasn’t sure how to say this, mainly because he didn’t have the slightest idea what Ares’ initial reaction would be. “I think we should change plans.”</p><p>“What would you have us do?” Ares asked, confused.</p><p>Gregor tried to work this out in his head. What made Ares tick? A special dislike for traitors, obviously, which would probably make this harder. He was strong, powerful, and valued that, in his choice of Henry…</p><p>“Ares, how much have I told you about Overland weapons?”</p><p>“Nothing of substance. You wish to obtain those, to gain us an advantage?”</p><p>“Uh, I thought of that, Ares, but I don’t think we could get enough to make a difference. Not on our own. There are laws about the really deadly ones, and it would take too long, even if I could get Mrs. Cormaci to help.”</p><p>“What, then?”</p><p>“Ares, did I tell you what a gun is?”</p><p>“You said that your father used one against gnawers once, but nothing beyond that. Is it a sort of slingshot?”</p><p>“It’s much…better…” The old hesitation to use that word about a way to kill someone, still, but Gregor pushed ahead. Stop the Bane, save Regalia…save Luxa. “…than a slingshot. A gun fires a little…chunk of metal so fast that…”</p><p>…</p><p>“Yet you say that you cannot obtain these ‘machine guns’, nor any of the others. So what use is this?”</p><p>“No, I can’t, I <em>really</em> can’t. There are laws about them, and in the Overland I’m just a kid. But my…kingdom in the Overland has an army, and it has lots and lots of them, and some other…stuff that’s even better. And they can use…it, to help, um, people in trouble.”</p><p>“But how could—you would have us reveal the Underland!”</p><p>Gregor couldn’t read the tone, he never could with bats…</p><p>“Ares, I wouldn’t even be thinking about this normally. But this isn’t normal. Even if the prophecy works out, it doesn’t say anywhere that killing the warrior and the creature saves Regalia. And even if it does…how many people are going to, to…<em>die</em> doing it?”</p><p>There was a very long silence, broken only by Ares’ steadily rhythmic wing beats.</p><p>“This could be considered treason, Gregor.”</p><p>“That’s hardly new for us, is it?”</p><p>“No, it is not,” Ares answered mirthlessly. Another long silence. At last he spoke again. “Gregor the Overlander, I am your bond. I know not whether this is right or wrong, so if it is what you wish to do, I will aid you.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Gregor answered. It seemed the right thing to say. “So…to the Central Park tunnel?”</p><p>Ares hesitated a final second. Then he banked into a turn.</p><p>As they flew back the way they had come, Gregor remembered a conversation he’d had with Ares, in the Labyrinth, what felt like a lifetime ago. Ares had spoken of how Gregor’s arrival had changed everything, how the world had seemed (by Underland standards) simple and peaceful before they’d been swept up in that first prophecy. “What happened to that world?” Ares had asked. “How did it change so swiftly?” Well, here he went again, turning everything upside down and inside out, and he knew now as he had then that the old world would never come back. At that moment, he almost changed his mind.</p><p> </p>
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